Factions
There are four total Factions in the galaxies in Sins of a Solar Empire. Three of these Factions are controllable by the player, the Trade Emergency Coalition (TEC), the Advent and the mysterious Vasari. The fourth faction, that of the Pirates, exist only to collect bounties by destroying ships of the other three. TEC The Trade Emergency Coalition was originally a group of trade worlds that descends from earlier human exploration, in the "Golden Age" their economy flourished and society grew. At one point they cast out the Advent, a religious desert sect that the Traders despised (see Advent) which lead many to mark the end to the Golden Age. In recent times the Vasari entered the scene as they fled from their Xeno enemy. To defend against the Vasari, the Traders formed the TEC, mobilized their economy into military economy and managed to hold the Vasari off by converting their merchant vessels and colony ships into warships, and later produced the Kol capital ship which was their first battleship design in 750 years. The Advent then returned, being much more powerful, and started a two front war. This forced the TEC to force retired veterans to return to the navy to fight back the Advent. The TEC tends to have heavily armored units and mostly focus on Ballistic (missiles and gauss guns) and less on lasers. They tend to have ships that, when fully upgraded, are heavily armored, shielded, and hulled. They have a mixed close-to-long range arsenal but mostly focused on the latter. Their preferred planets are terran planets. TEC Ships TEC Research Trees *'Combat:' Military Tree *'Civic:' Civilian Tree Advent The Advent was originally a desert religious sect that mastered psychic powers. They originally isolated themselves and followed the "Unity," The Unity is a religion that believes that everyone should unite mentally into a collective mind in order to ascend to perfection. During their exile they focused all of their resources into advancing their technology using their psychic powers to create the psi-tech. They are 1000 or more years ahead of the TEC. They have returned to exact vengeance on the TEC and unite the human race with the "Unity". The Advent tend to favor cheap lightly armored units but make up with energy weapons (lasers and plasma), psi-weapons (weapons that are mentally charged with a user's mental powers) and shields. Their units have a very sleek design. They prefer desert planets due to their history. Advent Ships Advent Research Trees *'Combat:' Hostility Tree *'Civic:' Harmony Tree Vasari The Vasari are the only alien race in the game. The Vasari Empire was once the strongest in the galaxy. Their empire was formed by peacefully assimilating primitive races and brutally crushing more advanced races, turning the populations of both into second class citizens. However, at some point they started losing contact with their worlds. At first, it was believed to be acts of rebellion, or the work of traitors, but as more worlds were lost, it became clear the situation was very serious. Fleets were sent to deal with the problem, but none of them ever returned, and the Vasari still had no clue as to the identity of the attacker. Finally, the Vasari recalled all of the available ships of their conquering fleet, the Dark Armada, and sent them all to the last planet they lost contact with. Only one frigate returned, literally falling apart, with its crew driven completely insane with fear. It was then that the Vasari Empire as a whole began to flee. They began their exodus, leaving their home systems behind, stopping only to harvest resources, rebuild their population, and to drop warning beacons in order to determine how close behind the unknown enemy was. As they fled, the beacons fell silent one by one, prompting the Vasari to continue their journey. Arriving in TEC space, the Vasari began their routine of conquering in order to collect resources. The campaign went smoothly at first, with the TEC having forgotten all the ways of war, but the TEC recovered and after 10 years, the Vasari are in a complete deadlock, with still more and more of their warning beacons going dark. The Vasari tend to have fewer, but more expensive units that have extremely hardened hulls. Their ships tend to use Phase Missile technology, which have the possibility of completely bypassing the shields of enemy ships. They are able to colonize Volcanic planets to the greatest extent. Their ships have to rely heavily on abilities, for without them their base damage is very poor and will lose to all of their counterparts in a toe-to-toe battle. Vasari Ships Vasari Research Trees *'Combat:' Warfare Tree *'Civic:' Empire Tree Pirates Piracy is a constant problem in the galaxy with raids taking place on a regular basis by the unscrupulous pirates. Those who take part in piracy don‘t care who they attack as they have no political views on the subject. They go where the money is, which is determined in part by Bounty. Pirate Ships Pirate Frigates *Light Frigate - Pirate Rogue *Siege Frigates - Pirate Pillager *Anti-Strikecraft Frigate - Pirate Reaper Pirate Cruisers *Offensive Support Cruiser - Pirate Cutthroat *Heavy Combat Cruiser - Pirate Corsair Pirate attacks can be stopped in a specific system by destroying their base. This will stop the attacks in the system where the base was located, however, pirates will still be present in other systems. If all pirate bases are destroyed, players will be unable to use the bounty system.